January 8, 2004
Education Week, Vol. 23, Issue 17
States
The State of the States 2004
States have added a wealth of data to report cards, giving the public a better idea of the state of education.
Special Education
Measuring by Other Means
Federal law requires states to provide "alternate assessments" for students with disabilities who cannot take regular state tests, even with accommodations.
Special Education
Tempting Teachers to Paradise
One of the most daunting challenges Hawaii has faced in the 10-year effort to overhaul its special education system is finding enough adequately trained teachers to meet students’ needs.
Special Education
Special Intervention
This special education class may give the students the boost they need to perform well on state tests—and earn high school diplomas.
Special Education
Accommodations in Oregon: A Juried Process
Students with disabilities often take state tests with accommodations, so that the exams more accurately measure what they know and can do.
Special Education
Teaching in Tandem
Collaborative teaching, a resourceful approach to main streaming, is a keystone of this school's plan to raise the achievement of special education students and move them into the era of state standards-based education.
Special Education
Put to the Test
States are making great strides in including students with disabilities in their standards-based systems.
Special Education
Diversity in Funding: Strategies Vary by State
State strategies for financing special education are almost as diverse as the populations the programs are meant to serve.
Special Education
The Funding Fix
States must deal with demands of higher academic standards and increasingly severe disabilities.
Special Education
Highly Qualified?
Teaching students with disabilities to high standards will depend on the skills of their teachers.
Special Education
Vouchers: The Florida Experiment
Florida’s one-of-a-kind voucher program for children with disabilities does not require participating private schools to give standardized tests.
Special Education
Charters: An Uneasy Fit
Tailored for children with autism, the Princeton House Charter
School in center-city Orlando is exempt from the A-to-F state
system of school grading that strikes fear in so many Florida
educators' hearts. But don't think Carol Tucker is unaccountable for results.
Special Education
The Testing Dilemma
School never came easy to Jennifer Hunt. She needed extra time to write clearly and understand words on the page, but those hurdles never tripped up her ambition.
Special Education
All Means All
Under orders to test every student with a disability, states are pondering how to do so fairly and accurately.
Special Education
No Separate Room
Special education classes have permanently closed shop at James Russell Lowell Elementary School.
Special Education
Visions of the Possible
Special education students succeed with a general education curriculum.
Special Education
Basic Measures
Each weekday at W.G. Pearson Elementary School kicks off with more than two hours of reading instruction and activities.
Special Education
Disparately Disabled
With African-American students showing up in classrooms for children with mental retardation at 3.3 times the rate of white students, it was obvious in 1997 that Alabama had an equity problem with its special education programs. Ordered by a federal court that year to fix it, the state set to work.
Special Education
Teachers: Spec. Ed. Students Should Meet Own Standards
Teachers agree that students with disabilities should be taught to high standards, but their opinions stand in stark contrast to the more concrete policies embedded in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Special Education
Enveloping Expectations
Federal law demands that schools teach the same content to children they wrote off a quarter-century ago.
Special Education
Special Needs, Common Goals
States are confronting how to help a diverse population meet the same standards expected of all.
